9, p. 651. The Gothic historian adds, with
unusual spirit, Cum suis deliberans suasit suo labore quaerere regna,
quam alienis per otium subjacere.

Discors odiisque anceps civilibus orbis,
Non sua vis tutata diu, dum foedera fallax
Ludit, et alternae perjuria venditat aulae.
---Claudian de Bell. Get. 565]

[Footnote 25: Alpibus Italiae ruptis penetrabis ad Urbem.
This authentic prediction was announced by Alaric, or at least by
Claudian, (de Bell. Getico, 547,) seven years before the event. But as
it was not accomplished within the term which has been rashly fixed the
interpreters escaped through an ambiguous meaning.]

The scarcity of facts, [26] and the uncertainty of dates, [27] oppose
our attempts to describe the circumstances of the first invasion of
Italy by the arms of Alaric. His march, perhaps from Thessalonica,
through the warlike and hostile country of Pannonia, as far as the foot
of the Julian Alps; his passage of those mountains, which were strongly
guarded by troops and intrenchments; the siege of Aquileia, and the
conquest of the provinces of Istria and Venetia, appear to have employed
a considerable time. Unless his operations were extremely cautious and
slow, the length of the interval would suggest a probable suspicion,
that the Gothic king retreated towards the banks of the Danube; and
reenforced his army with fresh swarms of Barbarians, before he again
attempted to penetrate into the heart of Italy. Since the public and
important events escape the diligence of the historian, he may amuse
himself with contemplating, for a moment, the influence of the arms
of Alaric on the fortunes of two obscure individuals, a presbyter
of Aquileia and a husbandman of Verona. The learned Rufinus, who was
summoned by his enemies to appear before a Roman synod, [28] wisely
preferred the dangers of a besieged city; and the Barbarians, who
furiously shook the walls of Aquileia, might save him from the cruel
sentence of another heretic, who, at the request of the same bishops,
was severely whipped, and condemned to perpetual exile on a desert
island. [29] The old man, [30] who had passed his simple and innocent
life in the neighborhood of Verona, was a stranger to the quarrels both
of kings and of bishops; his pleasures, his desires, his knowledge,
were confined within the little circle of his paternal farm; and a staff
supported his aged steps, on the same ground where he had sported in
his infancy.